Posts tagged ‘Grist family’

Harrison Darnell was my great-great-great-great grandfather. He was born by his own statement on 15 April 1815 in Wilkes County, North Carolina.1 His mother was Catherine Darnell,2 a somewhat mysterious woman who moved her small family from Wilkes County, North Carolina, to first Spartanburg District and then Pickens District, South Carolina, before settling finally in Rabun County, Georgia.

Harrison was supposedly the son of Catharine’s first husband, whose name is unknown. She married second to a Darnell, whose name Harrison took, and then a third time to Benjamin Grist, a veteran of the Revolutionary War who was himself a widower. Of these suppositions, the only one that has thus far been documented is Catherine’s marriage to Benjamin Grist, which took place on 2 April 1834 in Pickens District, South Carolina.3

I recently bought several back issues of the NGS NewsMagazine from a fellow researcher, and have been diligently combing through them for research and record tips. I’ve run across some really good finds, too, but the topic of today’s post comes from the article “Charting Your Priorities” by Susan Zacharias (January/February/March 2007, pp. 54 – 56). In short, Zacharias offers a method of prioritizing research by listing end-of-lines (that is, the earliest known generation in every direct line) in various fonts according to their place on the pedigree chart. Your largest font size (Zacharias recommends 18 point) would correspond to your most recent (chronologically) dead end, with each step down in fonts corresponding to one generation further back in time.